Word: hackmans
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...current college-age generation, watching "Bonnie and Clyde" is a little bit like traveling back in time. It features Faye Dunaway, Warren Beatty, Gene Hackman and Gene Wilder, long members of the Hollywood annals of stardom, in one of their debut performances. It also provides the escapistoutlaw inspiration for some contemporary faves like "Thelma and Louise" and "A Perfect World." But the outlaw-chase film is at its very best with "Bonnie and Clyde...
...here: a harshly beautiful Southwestern landscape; the eponymous warrior chieftain (Wes Studi), noble, misused and off the reservation because promises have been broken; an idealistic young officer (Jason Patric) who respects his enemy; and a greenhorn (Matt Damon) who wants to learn more about him; an honorable general (Gene Hackman) and a bloody-minded one (Kevin Tighe). There's even a grizzled scout (Robert Duvall), wise in the ways of the enemy...
...guarantees delivered by hired celebrities, and because major stars find it demeaning to recommend any product explicitly, mainstream celebritocentric advertising has become a subtle, weirdly stylized genre. Michael Jackson and Madonna don't do much more than appear in the vicinity of the Pepsi logo; Michael Douglas and Gene Hackman hire out for commercial voice-over work but -- We're major artists! -- decline to appear in ads or be identified by name. This is the age of virtual endorsement...
...movie begins sharply, laying out the panoply of privilege: the sleek cars, the comfortable faces (Gene Hackman, Hal Holbrook). It's like going on a shopping spree at Neiman Marcus and then getting whacked with the bill: here is the middle class's Faustian bargain of big money and sapping compromise, of anxious wives and Stepford lives. How handsome the paneling on a lawyer's desk -- as handsome as the paneling on a lawyer's casket. At Bendini, Lambert & Locke, death is the penalty for abusing the rule of confidentiality. Harvard Law whiz Mitch McDeere (Tom Cruise) will break that...
Avery Tolar (Gene Hackman), McDeere's mentor at the firm, is now a much more interesting character. A heavy-drinking womanizer who uses alcohol and sex to dull the pain of his wife's rejection while managing to retain a shred of human compassion at the end, his relationship with Abby is one of the strongest parts of the film. The contrast between the young, innocent wife and the older, jaded lawyer and her ultimate emergence as the stronger character is painful but dynamic to watch...